Kata's evaluation: evaluation of N2 project and changes that components went through. IPs at local level are well covered. Perhaps Kata to review specific bits of N2 (with Simon) to focus evaluation e.g. biophysical science (e.g. Birhanu's/Emily Schmidt's work).
A whole range of reports from Wat-A-Game etc. meetings/activities are in the pipeline.
1. Follow up from closing meeting
Impressions?
Dinner: delicious. A lot of effort to get the venue right. The room was nice. 20 out of 30 external participants showed up, including 2 state ministers who gave a speech and were strongly endorsing the messages and committed to spread the word about the messages. Visuals were strong. Good atmosphere and good combo work/relaxed. Perhaps a format to kick off new programs etc. Building a rapport right from the beginning is a good thing. We could have had slightly more upbeat speeches.
Knowledge watershed: Not enough time to discuss in group activities.
Good combination between the two events, inviting some similar people and others who were new. Next time invite 200 people, it would have been great for the buzz of the event? We didn't invite some conceivers of the project.
Slight energy dip?
We have a lot more products than we could display there.
Some local participants hijacked the event to take activities forward - they are really keen to keep these efforts going.
The open mic session was important for people to perceive the successes of NBDC.
Good but exhausting work - can we capitalise on this now?
Follow up: Who can produce...
Turning key messages into one digital story: DuckRabbit? Message 4 needs to be followed up with by an interview with Simon. Ditto with message 6 (Prezi) - Ewen to contact DuckRabbit / Beth to check with Tracy / Simon to check with BBC Media Action.
CD-Rom - including thank you for instigators? Ewen to investigate with Peter B.
Follow up with H.E. Seleshi: He will invite us to join SLM / REDD-FS.
2. Publications pipeline
Note from Doug: he is working with Mengistu to complete a paper on social and institutional issues around private pump irrigation. Should be completed for internal review before end of November. He is also expecting to co-author a paper on R4D with Kees and others, but time constraints have been overwhelming. Finally, he is waiting for the full Messages Document from KMIS to be finalized for publication.
Gerba to be acknowledged in Happy Strategies publication + article: perhaps we should have a clearer publication protocol. There is also a difference between data contribution and intellectual contribution to the analysis. Acknowledgements are important at any rate. ACTION: Alan and Simon to send a reminder to all about the publication protocol.
3. Communication channels and products, wiki clean up, website stories
Communication channels and products:
Do you have any of the following in the pipeline? Status?
Digital stories? ELB to come back to Elias, Beth, Zelalem.
Videos and presentations from closing meeting.
Other videos upcoming?
Other presentations upcoming? Ewen to chase Beth.
Pictures that are in your hard drive: what to do with those? To be organised by N2 team. Apollo to follow up on WLE meeting.
Audio materials?
Posters? Ewen to chase Beth on this.
Other media?
Wiki clean up: See minutes last team meeting and ensure that people assigned take charge of their respective pages i.e.:
It's now time to finalise this work and present the wiki information in the past tense (no more 'ongoing projects' except if outside NBDC)
Website stories:
Any story about any of the final bits of work?
Ewen to chase Beth on 6 blog posts?
4. Transition with WLE and Humidtropics?
Beth (HT)?
Beth & Simon (WLE)?
Humidtropics
We've decided in site selection meeting that Diga & Jeldu will be chosen as HT sites for the next year. Platform work will thus continue under HT. Working on work plans for that. Building upon NBDC activities but reconfigured around the sustainable intensification agenda which is suitable for platform members.
Fogera platform work could be continued under WLE and there's some work to address unrestricted grazing. Committee formed in Fogera and plans for meetings to develop ways forward with them in January. Possibly some WLE money to support that in Fogera (via Wat-a-game strand).
HT has less funding than WLE for this work.
WLE
There is follow on from WLE recent workshop in Jordan in early December.
ODI proposal sent to WLE - to be pursued by Simon in Jordan.
ACTION: IP team to plan a meeting about lessons learnt and planning next steps.
5. Reporting
Note from Doug who will not be at the meeting: CPWF is waiting for draft final reports from N2, N4, N5; and the N3 report circulating is still not final either. And in addition the NBDC overall final draft report. I am aware Tracey is nearly finished with N4 report. He commented on an earlier version of N5 in September but has not seen the revised version. Doug has a draft of the NBDC report in progress and shared it with Simon, Alan, Amanda some weeks ago (and received no feedback). He cannot do more until he receives the N2 draft, and updated N4 and N5 reports. This was due end of September (project reports were due end of August).
Ongoing work - Expecting N2 report. Alan to share N5 report to update publications. Alan looked at Tracy's report and sent comments. Relatively incomplete but Tracy will work on this. Doug developing a closure report (the skeleton is there).
Deadline: week 2-6 December.
5. AOB
Exit strategy? The plan is, in the final round, to continue with platforms under Humidtropics and WLE.
Task for Blue Nile proposal with Birru as lead. This needs follow up. At the moment nothing is happening. It should be owned by the task force, not just by ARARI.
Review committee
Alan and Simon involved in discussions with the three reviewers who enjoyed their trip. They liked the trip to Jeldu. They saw R4D being put in place via IPs towards institutional change, they were happy about the evolution of the national platform; they were pleased to see the engagement with partners evolving. They were sorry about the slashing of Topic Working Groups' budget. They were not sure about process thinking in NBDC and especially about where that is leading. Why did it take us so long to develop our key messages? The committee wants to see CPWF to influence CRPs. Question marks around cross-basin learning.
0. Review action point tracker from last meeting (# 90, 94, 96, 103, 112-115)
This is the final (regular) team meeting!!!
Check the list of action points and find them in red in the minutes below.
Minutes
Attending: Alan Duncan, Simon Langan, Kees Swaans, Beth Cullen, Randall Ritzema, Kindie Getnet, Eva Ludi, Kebebe Ergano, Belay Yazew, Aberra Adie, Via Skype: Josie Tracker, Doug Merrey.0. Reviewing action point tracker
Kata's evaluation: evaluation of N2 project and changes that components went through. IPs at local level are well covered. Perhaps Kata to review specific bits of N2 (with Simon) to focus evaluation e.g. biophysical science (e.g. Birhanu's/Emily Schmidt's work).
A whole range of reports from Wat-A-Game etc. meetings/activities are in the pipeline.
1. Follow up from closing meeting
- Impressions?
Dinner: delicious. A lot of effort to get the venue right. The room was nice. 20 out of 30 external participants showed up, including 2 state ministers who gave a speech and were strongly endorsing the messages and committed to spread the word about the messages. Visuals were strong. Good atmosphere and good combo work/relaxed.Perhaps a format to kick off new programs etc. Building a rapport right from the beginning is a good thing.
We could have had slightly more upbeat speeches.
Knowledge watershed: Not enough time to discuss in group activities.
Good combination between the two events, inviting some similar people and others who were new.
Next time invite 200 people, it would have been great for the buzz of the event? We didn't invite some conceivers of the project.
Slight energy dip?
We have a lot more products than we could display there.
Some local participants hijacked the event to take activities forward - they are really keen to keep these efforts going.
The open mic session was important for people to perceive the successes of NBDC.
Good but exhausting work - can we capitalise on this now?
2. Publications pipeline
Note from Doug: he is working with Mengistu to complete a paper on social and institutional issues around private pump irrigation. Should be completed for internal review before end of November. He is also expecting to co-author a paper on R4D with Kees and others, but time constraints have been overwhelming. Finally, he is waiting for the full Messages Document from KMIS to be finalized for publication.Gerba to be acknowledged in Happy Strategies publication + article: perhaps we should have a clearer publication protocol. There is also a difference between data contribution and intellectual contribution to the analysis. Acknowledgements are important at any rate.
ACTION: Alan and Simon to send a reminder to all about the publication protocol.
3. Communication channels and products, wiki clean up, website stories
Communication channels and products:Do you have any of the following in the pipeline? Status?
Wiki clean up:
See minutes last team meeting and ensure that people assigned take charge of their respective pages i.e.:
- Gender - Annette
- Innovation platforms - Beth, Zelalem etc.
- Livelihoods - Katherine Snyder and Liza Rebelo
- Participatory video - to be changed into 'participatory approaches'
- Policy engagement - Belay + Kees
- Project Interdependency andOther related projects in the region (Alemseged + Mengistu to add details of their projects on this).
It's now time to finalise this work and present the wiki information in the past tense (no more 'ongoing projects' except if outside NBDC)Website stories:
Any story about any of the final bits of work?
Ewen to chase Beth on 6 blog posts?
4. Transition with WLE and Humidtropics?
Humidtropics
We've decided in site selection meeting that Diga & Jeldu will be chosen as HT sites for the next year. Platform work will thus continue under HT. Working on work plans for that. Building upon NBDC activities but reconfigured around the sustainable intensification agenda which is suitable for platform members.
Fogera platform work could be continued under WLE and there's some work to address unrestricted grazing. Committee formed in Fogera and plans for meetings to develop ways forward with them in January. Possibly some WLE money to support that in Fogera (via Wat-a-game strand).
HT has less funding than WLE for this work.
WLE
There is follow on from WLE recent workshop in Jordan in early December.
ODI proposal sent to WLE - to be pursued by Simon in Jordan.
ACTION: IP team to plan a meeting about lessons learnt and planning next steps.
5. Reporting
Note from Doug who will not be at the meeting: CPWF is waiting for draft final reports from N2, N4, N5; and the N3 report circulating is still not final either. And in addition the NBDC overall final draft report. I am aware Tracey is nearly finished with N4 report. He commented on an earlier version of N5 in September but has not seen the revised version. Doug has a draft of the NBDC report in progress and shared it with Simon, Alan, Amanda some weeks ago (and received no feedback). He cannot do more until he receives the N2 draft, and updated N4 and N5 reports. This was due end of September (project reports were due end of August).
Ongoing work - Expecting N2 report. Alan to share N5 report to update publications. Alan looked at Tracy's report and sent comments. Relatively incomplete but Tracy will work on this. Doug developing a closure report (the skeleton is there).
Deadline: week 2-6 December.
5. AOB
Exit strategy? The plan is, in the final round, to continue with platforms under Humidtropics and WLE.Task for Blue Nile proposal with Birru as lead. This needs follow up. At the moment nothing is happening. It should be owned by the task force, not just by ARARI.
Review committee
Alan and Simon involved in discussions with the three reviewers who enjoyed their trip. They liked the trip to Jeldu. They saw R4D being put in place via IPs towards institutional change, they were happy about the evolution of the national platform; they were pleased to see the engagement with partners evolving. They were sorry about the slashing of Topic Working Groups' budget. They were not sure about process thinking in NBDC and especially about where that is leading. Why did it take us so long to develop our key messages? The committee wants to see CPWF to influence CRPs. Question marks around cross-basin learning.
Next team meeting? Monday 13 January 2014, 3-5pm.
On that agenda: